Barbour x Feng Chen Wang

Barbour doesn’t collaborate often, and when it does, it tends to choose partners who understand restraint as well as reinvention. Feng Chen Wang fits that brief neatly. For January 2026, the British heritage brand teams up with the London-based designer for a focused menswear capsule that reframes Barbour’s most recognisable silhouettes through a cultural lens that feels personal rather than performative.

At the centre is the Bedale. Originally designed for riding, it’s one of those jackets that has barely needed updating over decades. Here, Feng Chen Wang approaches it with a light but deliberate hand. The result is the Fengdale: a deconstructed take that keeps the Bedale’s proportions and utility intact, while introducing embroidery and symbolic detailing inspired by the Long Ma, a dragon-horse from Chinese mythology associated with endurance, movement and freedom. It’s still a Barbour jacket—but one that carries narrative weight without shouting about it.

That balance defines the wider collection. Alongside the Fengdale sits the Fenspey, a reworking of the Spey jacket, delivered in a restrained Lunar New Year colour palette intended to signal growth and good fortune. Layers and accessories follow the same logic: familiar forms, subtly retooled. Nothing feels ornamental for the sake of it. Function remains central, but identity is threaded into the seams.

For Feng, the collaboration is rooted in lived experience. Her first encounter with Barbour came as a student in London, watching waxed jackets cut through the city’s rain. That image—of practicality, movement and place—feeds directly into the collection. Barbour’s equestrian heritage finds a natural parallel in the Long Ma myth, allowing the jackets to operate as modern travel pieces rather than museum-grade heritage.

What’s smart here is the refusal to overmodernise. Barbour’s 130-year history isn’t diluted; it’s redirected. Feng Chen Wang’s conceptual instincts are present, but disciplined, giving the menswear an emotional undercurrent without compromising wearability. These are pieces designed to be lived in, not archived.